Waqar Younis: PCB has to take more responsibility of UAE tracks

Pakistan‘s former captain, Waqar Younis has advised the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) to take more ownership of the cricket venues in the United Arab Emirates if they want the national team to produce better results in the region.

Waqar said on Friday that since it was now a known fact that Pakistan’s second cricket home was the UAE due to teams not touring Pakistan because of security reasons, it was time the board took more ownership of the cricket venues in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.

“We all know now that these are basically our home venues for the last few years now, so we should be trying to use these venues like we would our home venues,” he said on Geo Super channel.

Pakistan are one down in the three-match Test series against Sri Lanka in the series being played in the UAE.

Former players have criticized the pitches prepared for the three tests while captain, Misbah-ul-Haq and senior spinner, Saeed Ajmal have also expressed reservations that the pitches didn’t support spinners at all and were not prepared to Pakistan’s strength.

Waqar said the PCB now should show more ownership of the three venues in the UAE where Pakistan played and have a few permanent employees including curator and groundstaff stationed at these venues.

“Look you can’t expect that you will send someone a few weeks before a series to oversee preparation of pitches and then expect you will get pitches of your liking,” the former fast bowler said.

“I think we need to have our curator stationed at these venues to ensure that whenever Pakistan plays pitches are prepared like a home series,” he added.

First Published on January 17, 2014, 10:57 pmLast updated on January 17, 2014, 10:57 pm